Coping: With Expando Planet Worries

By next Monday, or so, we ought to either have huge amounts of “release language” flying about surrounding something like a major West Coast earthquake, OR we’ll have to confront the possibility that the lingusitics around the date were processing artifact.  My money is on events.
 

“Why?”

Well, much of my concern has to do with the plasma expansion model of how and why earth is growing.  The idea is – vastly simplified – that the earth via some unknown mechanism, but having something to do with being a big energy absorber of the Sun’s output, may be growing over time.  As in geologic timescales and that this is the cause (along with complex magma fluid dynamics, of all the earth changes.

As one geology grad told me a while back – the focus on the plate tectonic theory was a relatively new thing, having arisen in the 1950′s which got me to thinking perhaps there’s more to earthquakes than tectonics.

All of which just went onto the back burner to simmer, until this morning when I wasn’t even going to mention having lots of food and water ready for this weekend – just in case – until a reader who’s touring Europe with his wife who reads this column (here comes a very bad pun!) religiously and sent the following email:

This piece of artwork clearly shows that The Vatican understood the Expando Planet reality in 1990 when this was installed in their garden. Fun . . . huh?

After staring at it for a while two thoughts came to mind.  One was that the Vatican artwork above could have been a dire warning about abusing our bodies with too much of…whatever your favorite excess is.  There’s a certain uncanny relationship to the look of my eyes, now and then, for instance.

On the other hand, we have noted with the PowersThatBe often warnings come hidden in plain sight before major events.

And example of this is the famous Simpsons episode which conspiracy investigators think was a “hidden in plain sight” hint of 9/11 being in the works.

I don’t claim that a major West Coast earthquake will strike late this week or possibly over the weekend.  More likely:  Much language has been floating on the net about the big FEMA National Lever Exercise which willbe called the “Great Central US Shake Out”

Obviously, as we get closer to the event, scheduled for April 28th, the linguistics around this will begin to spin up dramatically – so maybe  (hopefully?) it will just be the language with descriptive imagery of the 1812 quake (and related language) popping into the public consciousness.

Still, we continue to be troubled with last fall’s FEMA requests for proposals (RFP’s)  for a) 7.2 million MRE’s and b) an RFQ for something like 10-million bottles of water in the region.

If I really let monkeymind out of the box, I can find plenty of other reasons for worry.  Like this email, for example:

“Found this on Space Weather and am thinking about what Clif stated re 25/3:

“HERE COMES TROUBLE? A big sunspot is emerging over the sun’s southeastern limb, and it is crackling with activity. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a surge of extreme ultraviolet radiation from the sunspot’s magnetic canopy on March 21st”

Not much to do but wait, I suppose. I’m hoping, obviously, that this is just the linguistic scanning system pulling NLE chatter out…but it isn’t that simple and the sophistication of the underlying code would likely trap that out.

Still, with three major (over 6.0) quakes off Japan this morning, here’s hoping the linguistics are wrong.

Constitutional Issues, Reconsidered

I mentioned in yesterday’s report that I was not at all pleased with the US taking the front row position in Libya and I raised the Constutitonal question.

A well-versed reader disagreed with my assessment of things:

George,

Nothing at all illegal or unconstitutional about US actions against Libya. Not saying the use of our military in a 3rd Muslim nation is wise, but according to Wiki

“The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war.”

So the Prez, as CINC, can commit military forces anywhere, short of declaring total war, and simply notify congress that (s)he will do so. Many times treaties – like the UN and NATO (all treaties are authorized and approved by 2/3 of the Senate) and Executive Agreements (essentially ‘shortcut treaties’ independent of congressional approval) provide the terms and conditions necessary for our US troop deployments.

During Constitutional Law, my professor felt that neither congress nor the executive branch really wants to elevate the War Powers Resolution to the Supremes, as both sides fear losing and thus weakening their respective branches of government. But there is a considerable degree of weighted opinion favoring the presidency over congress, believing that the latter over-stepped its constitutional responsibilities and crossed the line between separation of powers for conflicts that are ‘non-total’ wars. And since congress passes the laws that pay for all things military, simply cutting military funding will put the kibosh on deploying forces willie nillie across the globe.

Bottom line: the constitution remains inviolate . . . for now. Whether US leaders are playing our national power poker chips judiciously is another issue all together!

I am not swayed by this.  First, because the Second Gulf of Tonkin incident was part of the basis of Johnson’s power grab, and if it didn’t really happen, then Congress was deliberately misled and the War Powers Act.

Given that there was possible deceit in the material facts surrounding the War Powers Act – and with serious Constitutional issues remaining – I think it behooves Congress to reassert its lawful powers to throttle back US war-making, and in this specific instance, since Europe has the 85% interest in Libya oil, I figure they ought to carry  85% of the offensive operations.

Before more of our already slammed US National Guard units get called up – like the Illinois group, I believe local forces from Bonn, Paris, Italy, Greece, Britain, and other bigger stake-holders should ante up.

Our beloved United States, as of this morning has a public debt of $14,224,862,420,919.33.  That’s damn near equal to our project GDP.

When the Debt equals or exceeds the GDP that’s technical bankruptcy and although the system may stumble forward, at some point logic suggests that we can’t afford to keep being the world’s police force unassisted and in reasonable proportion.

Especially when the basis for action – War Powers – was based in part on a possibly fictitious incident.

When the National Security Agency outs, via the agency historian that the Second attack didn’t actually occur,  (as described in the declassified Cryptologic Quarterly seems Congress ought to rethink its delegation of War Powers to align legislative response with actual historical events.

But, of course, that might serve to contain spending on wars, mind you, and can’t have that now, can we?  Not when we need economic recovery at any costs.

I wonder if I can get an SBA grant to start a discount missile factory out back?

America’s Least Want List

My deflationist pal Jas Jain sent out an advisory to friends this morning which may have some truth to it:

Beware Bearded Economists

A short list of bearded economists that appear on financial TV:

Ben Bernanke

Paul Krugman

Joseph Stiglitz

Robert Reiiiiiissssssssssssssssh

Dean Baker Samuelson (not the famous late Paul, maybe his son) or Glassman (?), I forget the name of the guy

(Please feel free to expand the list).

Hadn’t thought about that particular commonality, but sure enough…

 

Think I better go shave and roll back to a ‘stache only.  Besides, summer’s coming anyway, so why not?

 

 

Send Ure comments to george@ure.net

---

Last week’s report is always here.